The Bullroarer Atlas

ARETZ1976-001 - secondary catalog

Atshuana (source spelling)

Ecuador - Morona Santiago Province - South America - Upper Amazon

Play / practical

Representative—not this record’s object: a Ticuna mare bullroarer from the Western Amazon; no Atshuana specimen was ever figured.
Representative—not this record’s object: a Ticuna mare bullroarer from the Western Amazon; no Atshuana specimen was ever figured. Världskulturmuseet, Göteborg / SMVK (1930.40.0129) CC BY 4.0 Image source

pumbuentzade Spanish

Source term: palo zumbador

pumbuentzade = source-stated Atshuana name; no reliable gloss recovered.

Among the Atshuana of Morona Santiago, in the forested foothills of Ecuador's Upper Amazon, the bullroarer belonged to the children: they called it pumbuentzade and used it as a game. The name survives through Ecuador's 1976 music catalog Cuatro mil años de música en el Ecuador and the Chilean organologist José Pérez de Arce, who describes the South American palo zumbador as a board pierced at one end, threaded on a cord, and spun until it hums.

En la prov. Morona Santiago de Ecuador, los Atshuana lo llaman pumbuentzade y lo usan los niños como juego.

In Ecuador's Morona Santiago province, the Atshuana call it pumbuentzade and children use it as a game.

José Pérez de Arce, 'Aerófonos sin resonador, aerófonos de aire a presión,' Instrumentos Sonoros de Sudamérica (2025), p. 1817, citing cat 4000 Años 1976:18.
Object
The source calls it a palo zumbador: in Pérez de Arce's general definition, a board perforated at one end, threaded with a cord, and spun to hum. No Atshuana specimen or dimensions are given.
Function
Children's game: the Atshuana of Morona Santiago called their palo zumbador pumbuentzade and children used it as a toy.
Map confidence
medium - Morona Santiago province reference point; source names the province only.
Source location
pp. 1816-1817 (PDF pp. 23-24)

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